The Railways Ministry has decided to set up the 'Technology Mission for Indian Railways'(TMIR) as a consortium along with the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Industries on an investment-sharing model for taking up identified projects for applied research and use in railways.
TMIR will function through the mission implementation and coordination committee (MICC), comprising Prof. N.S. Vyas (former head of mechanical engineering, IIT-Kanpur) as the mission chairman and Railway Board executive director Alok Kumar as the co-chairman.
The MICC will formulate the 'mission management manual' (MMM) for functioning of 'TMIR' and the domain specific sub-committees for various fields of railway working and also for monitoring the progress of research and technology projects.
'TMIR' will also monitor progress of research projects of the existing Railway Research Centre (RRC) at IIT-Kharagpur and other four upcoming centres sanctioned in the 2015-16 budget.
Thus, railways' investment in applied research activities will be fruitfully converted to technology development for actual use in railway working.
The execution of various projects under 'TMIR' will be dealt in terms of procedures, to be defined in its MMM'.
The nodal directorate for functioning of the TMIR and its MICC will be the Railway Board Efficiency and Research Directorate.